


Want

by Rinkafic



Series: Keri 'verse [22]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-11
Updated: 2012-08-11
Packaged: 2017-11-11 22:38:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/483641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinkafic/pseuds/Rinkafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Travelers like ships.  An Ascended Earther does not like Larrin.</p><p>
  <i>(And I bet you thought I'd let a certain somebody go without a fight?)</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Want

It was all about the ship, Larrin was not too proud to admit it. She wanted the shiny, comparatively new ship that they were following through the sector, and she would do whatever it took to get it. It was a little charred, sure, but that was to be expected after engaging in a tussle with the Wraith. They were lucky to be in one piece. Stupid, didn’t they know better? They should have turned and run, taken their fine vessel and run and hid, like any sensible spacefarer would do when facing a Wraith hive. But no, they had stayed and fought. If it were ego and honor and all that rot, their senseless pride would get them all killed one day, which was fine with her, she and the Travelers would be there to pick up the pieces when they finally lost. It was what they did best, picked up the pieces.

She just hoped they didn’t get that sleek, shiny nosed vessel all blown to smithereens in the meantime. The interlopers had made it through the fight, the hive was dust. Luck or skill or superior firepower had ruled the day. Larrin hoped it was the latter, for she wanted that firepower under her control. 

Her people were not able to determine the origin of the new ship. Its design was unique, like none they had seen before. There was no ship of its kind in their extensive database. The engines were powerful, they had seen that when observing their fight with the Wraith hive. The hive had been limping along, damaged, which was probably why the newcomers had been able to overtake and destroy them. Their weapons shot beams of swirling blue energy, the pulse twisted and crackled in the vacuum of space as it had enveloped and tightened around the hive. Larrin had squirmed slightly in excitement as she stood on the command deck of her ship and watched. She wanted that ship with a desire that was palpable. She had secretly hoped that the Wraith would disable their attacker, overrun the ship and take the crew, leaving behind the tech as was their habit. It was why the Travelers followed discretely in the wake of the Wriath, they were messy in their hunting.

“You really don’t want to tangle with them, sweetheart,” a wry voice said from behind her shoulder. Larrin rolled her eyes and tried to ignore him. Damned Earther. If she’d known she would be stuck with one of them, she would have ordered her crew not to shoot any them and tossed the entire lot off at that first habitable planet. She should never have listened to the engineers and kept some back for their expertise. That plan had backfired and now she had this to contend with. “They’ll slap you silly and wipe the floor with you without blinking,” he said mockingly.

“Shut up,” Larrin hissed.

“No.”

Trust her to get stuck with an ascended Earther holding a grudge. The bastard took great pleasure in haunting her, if one could call this haunting. She knew he enjoyed this because he informed her of it, repeatedly. She could do nothing about his presence, he was intangible, nothing they did affected him. He was not leaving the ship until he was ready to do so. “We didn’t kill you hard enough,” Larrin snapped in irritation.

The Earther laughed. He refused to tell her his name, since it annoyed her that she had never learned it. Everything he said was designed to annoy, irritate and infuriate her, her punishment for destroying his physical form. He blamed her because it was her ship, her crew and thus her command that had ultimately led to his death. If she’d known the cretinous Earthers could ascend like Ancients, she would have... Larrin actually had no idea what she would have done with the knowledge. But things would have been different.

“What do you think we were running from, Larrin?” he asked, circling around to float slightly above the decking, because it amused him to remind her he could do that. “THAT is what decimated my homeworld. Those are the Hrsul. They call themselves The World Eaters. I’ve learned a lot, being dead. Which is your fault, remember.”

“How could I ever forget? You remind me daily. I’m not afraid. We’re faster.”

“They have better weapons. I went over and had a peek. They will eat you for breakfast if they pick up your trail. Snap, crackle, pop and you guys are toast. I can’t wait to watch it happen.”

She rolled her eyes and looked past his translucent form to the viewscreen. “If we’re destroyed, your death’s purpose will be gone, you’ll have no one to harass anymore, Earther.”

“Perhaps I’ll haunt the Hrsul for a bit. Or maybe I’ll just float away, maybe catch up to my people. You did leave some of them alive, didn’t you?”

“Yes. If I find them for you, will you get off my ship?”

“No.”

Larrin tried again to ignore him as she looked at the readouts of the specifications of the Hrsul ship. At least now she had a name for them: Hrsul. She suspected the Earther was trying to instill panic in her crew, who could all see and hear him, though they had been instructed not to speak to the ascended being. That energy weapon with the beautifully artistic mountings on the bow of the ship was making her mouth water. She wanted that ship. 

“Shadow them,” Larrin ordered the helm.

“You should have run. You’re making a big mistaaaakkkeeee,” the Earther chanted, crossing his arms and “leaning” against a console. He smirked at her. “You’re all going to dieeeee,” he sang cheerily. That made her bridge crew look around at each other nervously.

“Ignore the Earther, he’s merely trying to frighten you. Are you children to fall for this trickery? You have your orders, mind your stations!” 

The Hrsul were heading into a Wraith-held area. She merely had to wait patiently and stalk them until they were ambushed and taken. The Wraith would suck them dry, turning them into husks and leaving the shells of their bodies along with their ship to be salvaged by Larrin. She merely had to bide her time and the prize would be hers. 

“You do realize they have very powerful sensors? I’ll bet they already have you in their sights. They’re playing you, luring you in like a little fish into their net. You’re going to die today, Traveler. Snap, crackle. Screaming in pain. They are not merciful. You know a little about that though, don’t you, child killer? The Hrsul are your kind of people. Except they don’t make friends, they have no allies, they would just as soon shoot you as spit on you.” The vindictive Earther would never forgive them for taking aim at the hysterical child he had died to protect. The guard that had fired the shot was long dead now, driven mad by the ascended Earther’s presence on the ship; he had taken a walk out of an airlock to escape the torment. Larrin was made of sterner stuff. 

The Hrsul ship floated against the backdrop of stars, a beautiful gem, ripe for the plucking. She wondered if the inside of the ship was as artfully designed as the outside. She imagined walking along white, gleaming corridors and running her hands over clean, dry bulkheads. There would be no constant hissing of steam, no creaking of fatigued metal, no grinding of worn parts in need of repair. All would be blissfully silent, the hum of precision machinery in peak operating condition would be the only sound to be heard. The Hrsul ship was a dream, one almost within her reach. She meant to have it. 

Her lust for the ship made her blind, overrode her usual caution.

A warning klaxon blared behind her, a proximity alarm sounding a panicked alert. She spun and glared at the open-mouthed tech that looked from his viewscreen to her and back. It was a look that boded great ill.

“Oh, did I neglect to mention that the Hrsul always travel in pairs?” the Earther quipped. He made a gun with his fingers and aimed it at Larrin’s forehead and mimed shooting it. “Pop!” 

The first blast of blue energy that enveloped her ship from behind rocked it sideways, throwing almost everyone to the deck, except Larrin, who managed to brace herself and maintain her footing. She shouted orders, trying to regain control and establish order within the chaos. Larrin was in denial, this couldn’t be happening, not like this. Her ship, her crew - they were too good to fall into an ambush. This sort of thing happened to others, not to her.

“I’d offer to help, but, well, I sort of want to watch you blow up,” the Earther said in a satisfied voice. 

“Shouldn’t you be peaceful, forgiving and kind?” Larrin snapped as she grabbed for the arm of her command chair to keep her balance when the ship tilted dangerously, now listing to port. Explosions from the engineering level signalled the doom of her ship.

He smirked at her and shrugged. “Maybe, I don’t know, I also don’t care. No one gave me a rule book. I think it is time for your comeuppance, Traveler. Enjoy your afterlife, if you have one.”

He smiled again, waved and disappeared as Larrin’s world exploded in a ball of blue energy.

 

The End


End file.
